Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will discuss with his Scottish counterpart the roll-out of superfast broadband for the West Coast of Scotland and those parts of central Scotland which do not yet have access to superfast broadband; and if he will make a statement.

This Government is committed to the roll-out of Superfast Broadband throughout the UK and I enjoy regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Scotland regarding delivery of superfast broadband in Scotland.

The Government has already contributed £100.80m to projects to increase the provision of broadband in Scotland. I am pleased to note that we have made a further £21m available to the Scottish Government to further extend coverage as part of the second phase of the Superfast Broadband Programme. At the end of October 2014, the Superfast Broadband Programme ‘Rest of Scotland Project’ had provided fibre coverage to 113,000 premises and the ‘Highland and Islands Project’ had covered 28,400 premises.